Kiss Or Kill (OwlCrate Romantasy January '26)

I recently finished reading The Wolf and the Crown of Blood by Elizabeth May. This is book #1 in the Broken Accords series. This was the Romantasy book from January 2026.

This exclusive edition features an exclusive redesigned dust jacket by @annguyenart with design by @lichen_and_limestone with stenciled edges designed by @annguyenart, a reversible dust jacket by @meggie_art, a hardcover case design by  @linaganef, and end pages by @gildedruin. The book is also signed by author Elizabeth May on an author page with an author's letter bound into the book, as well as bonus content.

**POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT**

  Rating: 4.25/5 stars

"A princess and a war-weary god met in the ashes of a broken city, forging a pact in blood and sacrifice.

Now, centuries of fragile peace are on the brink of collapse…

Bryony Devaliant was born to die — again and again. In Vartena, royal blood is the currency of peace, with every monarch sacrificed and resurrected to appease the gods. But when rebellion stirs, the god-king sends his deadliest weapon to restore order: an immortal assassin known only as the Wolf.

Evander has perfected the art of killing over centuries — until his latest target becomes the one person he cannot destroy. When forbidden desire burns between the assassin and the sacrificial princess, their connection threatens the fragile boundary between gods and mortals. And when that boundary shatters, empires crumble. Because when gods fall in love with mortals, mortals are always the ones to break."

First of all, the thing that needs to be said is that this is a dark romance. The relationship between the FMC and MMC (Bryony Devaliant and Evander The Wolf) is not your usual romance story. It is basically a very toxic, slow-burning relationship between a Princess and an assassin - in particular, THE assassin who is ordered to kill her.

With that being said, there is a type of rhythm in the telling of this story, and once I settled in and found my footing with the writing style (and had a better understanding of the "whys" behind certain behaviors), I decided to buckle in and hang on for the ride.

Ms. May has created a unique world in which there are gods, demigods, and humans. There is a long history of wars between the mortals and the gods, and let's just say that they do not interact. The events of the past may have been forgotten with time by the mortals, but the gods are a long-lived race, and they have NOT forgotten the atrocities of the war.

There was an accord agreed to at the end of the last war that established a human kingdom (well, one ruled by an Emperor) separate from the land of the gods. The mortals are required to tithe in blood to the particular god who rules Vartena - the god of storms - with the members of the ruling family having a much greater obligation. They are required to die as a sacrifice on an altar over and over, with the oracles bringing them back to life once the tithe is accepted.

The story begins when Princess Bryony is becoming more popular than the god to whom they are supposed to tithe, and he sends his assassin - The Wolf - to kill her. Needless to say, that kicks everything off.

Evander finds something about Bryony that intrigues him and gives her a secret stay of execution. The craziness begins to grow when the two of them form a type of hate relationship. She hates him because she hates what his kind have subjected her to (and because, of course, he is going to kill her), and he hates her because of who her family is/was.

There are all kinds of back story that begins to unravel and much more political intrigue going on as well. The POV's are mostly from Evander and Bryony's view, but we get additional POV's thrown in occasionally.

The character of Evander goes through the most character growth. Bryony, on the other hand, learns to physically get stronger, but her character was a bit harder for me to get behind. While there is a lot of spice that is suggested throughout the book tangentially, nothing actually takes place between the two until late in the book. Talk about UST. There is so much yearning.

One of the things that completely threw me out of the story was the fact that our FMC is a virgin, and it did not compute with the story the way it was told, both for the circumstances leading up to it, but especially with the scene where the event actually happens. That was something that I kept thinking, "didn't it say that she was a virgin?" in my head so many times. Maybe it was just me, but I think the story would have made much more sense if that fact had not been mentioned or if it was not true.

The story does wrap up completely at the end of the book, so it can be read as a standalone, but it says in the title that it is the first book in the series. I want to go on record and say that this is one of the very few books, if any, that did not leave us with a major cliffhanger in order for us to buy the second book. I very much appreciate that. It did, however, set up a couple of storylines that can be tugged for the next book. Because of this, and because I did enjoy the book, I am going to be very happily waiting for book 2.

Check out The Wolf and the Crown of Blood, and discover what happens when you're a sacrifice with an assassin coming after you.

Happy reading :)